Some People Burn Brighter Than Stars
by Quasar-Hunter
Summary: Half-human Eversly Carson just wants to be accepted– purple skin and all. After she loses her family, her best friend and her left leg when soldiers attack their village, she finds acceptance in the pirate crew who adopt her into their circle. Things become more complicated when rumors of war over a treasure map (and an attraction to John Silver) enter the mix. [Young JS X OC]
1. Burning Stars, Falling Sky

****Rating: ****T for violence, language, alcohol use & romance (kissing… hugging… googly eyes… the horror!)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Treasure Planet, OR the lyrics used in the chapter openings. I just think it's awesome and want to explore John Silver's past. Particularly in the *cough* romance department. E-hem… anyways… I don't own Treasure Planet or it's characters, but I do own my kick-butt OC. Feel free to write your own stories using her, just give credit to moi. Arigatou.

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><p><em>"No light, no light in your bright blue eyes.<em>

_I never knew daylight could be so violent. _

_A revelation in the light of day–– _

_You can't choose what stays and what fades away." _

**-_No Light, No Light_, by Florence + the Machine**

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><p>There's something beautiful about the vast expanse that is space.<p>

Most of the time, people wax eloquently about things like the moons orbiting their planets, or the brilliancy of the stars–– even their sun.

I won't deny how incredible they are. But it's space that holds them.

The vastness that is space makes you feel small. Like a single quark of an atom within an entire being. It's beautiful and horrible and very, very humbling.

I see space every time I close my eyes. I want to be out there. I want to be cradled in its vast expanse.

Breathing the night air in and out in one colossal sigh, I open my eyes and look back up into the sky.

I'd like to say it's waiting for me, but space waits for no being.

I have to take it in my hands.

"Eversly? You up here?"

Tristan appears on the rooftop. His too-long blonde hair sways in the evening breeze.  
>"Yeah, come on up."<p>

He lies down next to me, his hands tucked behind his head as he stares up at the stars. "I thought your mom didn't want you to be out at night anymore after what happened last week."

"What she doesn't know shouldn't kill her. Besides, last week was an anomaly."

"Anomaly?"

"It was a strange occurrence. I'll be certain it doesn't happen again."

"You can't just think away things, Eversly. The world doesn't work like that."

I shrug. "Why can't it?"

"It just can't."

We lay in silence together. He's my best friend. We've lived next to each other since we were born. We've shared each other's dreams of space since grade school.

"The raids are getting worse, Eversly. You know they take no prisoners."

"Then me sitting on the roof isn't going to make any difference. If they come, they come."

He shrugs. "I guess so. It's a good thing it was a few towns over any ways."

We pause for a while, looking out at space and listening to each other's breathing.

"Why do you think they're attacking us?"

"Who knows? Do pirates need a reason to attack common villages?"

"It just seems strange," he says. "Odd that they'd be so riled. I wonder if the council recently passed anti-pirating laws."

I shrug. "I don't know. The council never tells us anything."

Tristan turns onto his side, his head still cradled in one hand. He looks me over with his pale mint-green eyes. He reaches out and tucks some hair behind my tapered ears.

"Sometimes I forget you're not completely human," he murmurs.

I smile, letting him catch a glimpse of my fangs. "You know I just want to fit in."

"I know." He smiles back and touches my forehead. "I wish you didn't want to."

"Want to what?"

"Fit in."

I shrug. "It's uncomfortable being the only non-human in a village of humans."

"I know. But you shouldn't have to hide who you are. Plus, you have purple skin. If it's not obvious that way…"

I turn away from him and look back up at the sky. He doesn't understand. He's my best friend and he doesn't understand.

I've known Tristan my entire life. We were born together–– our mothers had been best friends.

My father had saved Tristan's father's life, which makes us almost kin. When someone saves your life, you're bound to him or her. It's something that not even our people understand. By our people, I mean my non-human father's side. Those people.

Some people say it's a spiritual connection, like a linking of the souls. When one of us saves someone, or we are saved by someone else, our hearts are bound together until we satisfy our debt through service or saving their life in turn.

To repay his debt, Tristan's father brought my father here, to begin a new life in peace.

"What're you thinking about?"

"The past."

"Which part?"

"Our fathers."

He's quiet for a bit before he says, "It's weird to think that we're kin without being kin."

I shrug. "Not really."

"To you. Your mind just works differently."

"I guess so."

He glances out across the rooftops of the other houses. Smoke wafts from their chimneys and dim lights flicker in the windows. In the distance, the docks reach out over the cliff-face with their built-in lights glowing faintly.

"You want to go shooting tomorrow morning?" I ask.

"Why not?" he says with a smile. "I just love getting beaten."

"But it won't be a competition."

"With you, everything is a competition. Good night, Ever."

"Night, Tris."

He stands up and, swaying slightly, tiptoes across the roof back to his house. He turns back to look at me. "Six?"

"In the morning?"

"Yeah. Before school."

I shrug. "Why not. I'll bite."

He grins, then grips the edge of his house's roof and swings through his open window.

The cold bites at my bare toes as the wind picks up. I lay out, staring at the night sky until my eyes grow heavy and I drift off into the world of dreams.

I wake up as a scream pierces the darkness. Bolting upright, I look out over our town. The bright orange glow of flames quickly flares in one of the streets. Low, grumbled shouts and arguing voices push away the original silence.

Lights come on in almost every house, including mine. Front doors open and men holding torches, their pistols jammed into their pockets, or brandished in one hand, many with their wives and children peeking out from behind them, look out into the street.

"Eversly?" I hear from just below me. "Eversly Carson! Get off that damn roof!"

I stand up and dash to the edge, then swing into my open window.

"I told you not to––"

"I'm sorry," I say quickly. "There's a fire. We have to hurry."

"You're not going anywhere. Let the men-folk take care of this."

"I can shoot a pistol better than any of them, except Papa. Please––"

"Hush. You're a young woman, Eversly. You need to leave the fighting to the males, who're better suited to it. You know I don't mind you practicing and learning to shoot, but war isn't kind to women. I don't––"

"You just don't want me to get hurt. I understand. But I'm––"

"End of discussion, Eversly," my mother says, her quiet voice breaking with fury.

I glance at the pistol my father gave me four years ago for my fifteenth birthday. Its handle sticks out from under my pillow.

She glances at it too, then says sharply, "If you use that, then I'll have to confiscate it."

"Mom! There might be pirates! Raiders! If it is, then you won't have to! We'll all be dead!"

She purses her lips. "Your father will take care of it."

I hang my head and look away. She takes me into her arms and kisses the top of my head. The purple glow of my skin contrasts against the pale white of hers.

"I love you, Ever. _For_ever."

"I know, Mom," I murmur.

"Now, don't leave this house. Understand?"

I nod. I don't plan on staying. There's no way I'm staying behind and letting them torch my village and murder our friends.

"Good."

She closes the door on the way out.

I glance to my open window, then hurry to my closet. I slip out of my pajamas and into some regular clothes. I jam my feet into my worn brown boots.

Grabbing my pistol on the way out, I throw myself out of my window and through Tristan's open one.

He's not in his room. His sock drawer, where he keeps his blaster, is still open and his bedroom door swings on its hinges.

I walk out of his room and stride down their upstairs hallway. Sliding down the stairs, I reach their kitchen. Tristan's mother holds a pistol as she wraps her arms around Tristan's younger siblings.

She glances up and her eyes widen. "Eversly? What's––"

I turn tail and dash out their front door. I hear shouting and the shots of blasters being fired. A woman screams somewhere nearby.

There's no time. They've come for us this time.

I take my blaster off its safety setting and creep across the street, and then dash down an alleyway.

Hauling myself up the side of a building, I pull myself onto the rooftop and look down.

The house below me creaks and fire roars. Adrenaline jolts my system as I realize was was stupid enough to jump onto the top of a burning house. As I run to try to get out of the smoke and onto a more safe home, I take aim at the nearest being I don't recognize.

Its green skin and tentacles pulse once before it explodes, spattering blue, gel-like blood across the street.

I see a few people look up, but I keep running. I hear the shot of a blaster and feel the burn of its plasma biting into the side of my arm. The feeling dies into a tingling numbness as I bring my hand to it.

I let go of it and lower myself down towards the roof edge. I don't know if I can support myself completely with both arms, but I definitely can't do it with just one.

Gritting my teeth from the pulling of injured muscles, I grab the gutter's edge and swing down as fast as I can to get it over with. I push through a window and tumble to the floor, rolling before I push myself up.

My arm sears with pain like I'm pressing hot coals to my skin. I glance down at it and have to look away. The nick is shallow, but ragged and slowly oozing purple blood. Already my shirt-sleeve is stained with a circle of violet.

I look around for some kind of rag to stop the blood-flow. Tearing open the drawer nearest to me, I pull out what I assume to be a man's undershirt. I can't confirm how sterile it is, but it'll have to do, especially since I'd rather use an undershirt than a dress shirt, which would be cleaner.

Quickly ripping a long swath from it before I fold another shred of it into a square pad, I press the square to my arm, then put the long piece between my arm and my chest.

Holding one end between my teeth, I struggle to wrap the other end around it and tie a tight knot.

The smell of smoke has crept up on me and I can almost hear the inferno in the house two down from this one. I hear more blaster fire, and the ruckus of battle continuing.

I dash through the house, my feet pounding against the worn, wood floors. Down the stairs. Across the living room. Out the front door.

Into a pirate.

Its soft, cream-colored flesh almost melts as someone fires a shot through it. It pools into a puddle on the ground and I jump over it.

I see my father, in a fist-fighting brawl with a tall and broad-shouldered humanoid. My father's normally purple skin is violent, midnight purple as he bares his fangs and bites into the man.

He keeps his jaws closed, so when the humanoid rips his arm away, his fangs rip across the flesh, leaving giant lesions.

Suddenly, I'm pushed from behind and tumble to the ground. Quickly turning to look up, a gigantic olive-gray alien takes a step backwards.

I roll out of the way before his giant foot crushes my legs.

Pushing myself to my feet, I take aim with my pistol and fire at the alien my father is fighting. It goes straight through what I presume to be its head.

It turns to look at me, and my father draws his knife and rips it through its torso, letting its innards flow and flop onto the pavement. It slowly falls to the ground.

My father runs towards me, his long, thin legs making it easy to reach me.

"Eversly. Go. Now! Go protect your mother!"

"But Papa, I––"

A blaster fires and it's like the world slows. My father's eyes grow wide and he looks down at me. He glances to his torso, his white shirt quickly staining with violet blood.

"Papa?"

He smiles faintly before his eyes roll into his head and he falls backwards, his head cracking against the pavement. A trickle of blood stains his now white face with purple.

I feel my blood boil. I see red. My skin is black. A tar black, burning so hot my clothes smoke. With a scream of fury, I rush forward into battle, towards the pirate who just murdered my father.

Before I know it, blood stains my hands. The only way I can tell is because it drips from my fingers and stains my shirt.

Then, I realize I am alone. I breathe heavily, slumped in the entryway of a house. The street is dark. I smell smoke and burning plaster. My pistol is missing. I look around wildly for it, then dash up.

They killed my father. Those sons of spaceport floozies killed my father.

I sprint down the street, past some of the bodies.

Stop.

I glance back at one of the bodies. Too-long blonde hair. Glassy blue-green eyes that stare up at the sky like he had just done a few hours ago.

Tristan lies face up in the street in a pool of his own blood. It coils around his stomach and head, staining his hair a disgusting burgundy-brown. His eyes reflect the stars he had always wanted to visit.

A scream lies at the front of my mouth, but refuses to leave as I fall to my knees at his head. My body curls over his as I sob into his frozen chest. His woolen scarf still smells like him, despite all the blood.

I take the gun he has gripped in his still-warm hands.

_I'll kill them all._

My ears soon hear the screams of the others in our town. I hear blaster fire. I stand. Scarlet blood stains my pants and shirt.

Brandishing the gun, I sprint to the main road, towards the gunshots that still ring out in the night. The pale sun peeks onto our world, as though afraid to shed light on the destruction of our village.

I shoot the first pirate in sight. The shot sails through his head and green blood drips down from the entry wound. He quickly topples to the ground and his blood drips down the pavement. I aim and fire again. There are no more screams. Just the crackle of flames. The next pirate falls. I can't control myself. I can't help but kill the men who took my father and my friend away from me.

I've killed three of them by the time they turn on me. Then, I run. I turn and run as fast as I can.

My lungs burn with the effort, but I keep running. I want to die with Tristan. Next to him. So that we can share the blood we never shared in real life.

Pirates–– especially raiders–– don't take prisoners.

I hear the blast before I feel the shattering pain in my leg. My knee crumples underneath my weight. I bite my lower lip to prevent them from hearing me scream.

No longer able to walk, I drag myself closer to his body. I can see it lying just a few feet in front of me.

One of them steps on my right arm, grinding it into the pavement. It shatters like a milk bottle under his boot, crunching and quickly going numb before it feels like a thousand knives rake the inside of my arm. I almost scream and instead grip my bottom lip with my teeth. I taste blood and I know I've split my lip. Tears roll down my cheeks as I try to pull myself just a bit farther.

They laugh as I drag my body along the ground with my one good arm. I finally reach Tristan, then grip onto his scarf–– the one his mother knitted for him so long ago. The wool has the scent of smoke and his family woven in with the thread.

Suddenly, everything goes black. My cheek presses into the blood-soaked pavement.

So this is what death feels like.

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><p>I can barely see through the haze that encompasses my vision. Everything is blurry, but I can smell blood, some kind of latex and something akin to antiseptic.<p>

A hospital? My eyes open a bit further. I can see a few people through the haze. My eyes are so heavy. The room is dark, except for the huge lights that hang over my head. I try to sit up, but I'm so dizzy.

I can't move.

Voices break through the silence. They're muffled, but I can just make out their tones and a few of the words.

A mask goes over my face and I breathe in. Then out.

My eyelids grow heavy again. I don't want to go back to sleep. I want to enjoy death, if this is actually what death is.

I try to sit up again, but can't. I turn my head to the side. There's a bronze leg lying across a stand. Wires dangle from the end that would plug into a hip.

The afterlife makes no sense.

I can't fight whatever I'm breathing in through the mask. My eyes slowly slide shut and my entire body relaxes.

The darkness returns.

Why am I not dead?

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><p>I wake, nestled into the sheets of a bed. The whole room rocks. Slowly.<p>

My arm has a metal brace on it, but has obviously been mostly healed and put back together. My head pounds as I try to sit up. A heaviness pervades my every movement and thought.

"Ah, ye' be awake, lass?" says a voice from across the room. "Me apologies on behalf of those bullheaded idiots. They obviously don't know t'not hit a lass that hard."

"Excuse me?" I demand. Then, I remember.

Tristan. Dead.

Father, and no doubt Mother. Dead.

I can't move the grief is so crushing. Why couldn't I have died? Why couldn't they have just shot me and left me for dead?

I want to die. I want to die so badly that it feels like my organs are ready to heave themselves out of the shell that is my body.

A wave of nausea jumbles through me and I try to hold onto the bile in my gut, even though I know I should let it out.

I turn away from the voice, slowly easing myself to no longer face him.

"The name's Silver. John Silver–– and y' should tell me your name, or else y' be called by your new nickname."

Tears roll down my face. I hate them all. They will pay for what they did. They will––

"Lass? What be your name?"

I think.

"Go to hell, pirate."

"That be an int'restin' name, lass. Never heard o' the name Gotohellpirate. It be a family name, or––"

"Tris," I murmur. "Tris Eversly."

I turn over and look at him. He's tall and broad-shouldered, with thin, triangular ears. His skin is a dark tan. With a bandana tied over his head, a hat in his lap and an earring through his left ear, he looks exactly how I expected a pirate to look.

"So, your kind does have eyes like the stories we hears."

I blink. My eyes are bright yellow with tiny slits for pupils. I realize I'm blinking with my third eyelid when I can still see him through my blinks.

I consciously blink with my outer lids.

"You be strangely silent for a woman."

"You killed my family and my friends," I reply, trying to bottle up my emotions like my father always could. "And you wonder why I'm silent."

He turns his head to the side. "Wha––? You think…" He looked away. "That weren't me crew, lass."

"You lie, pirate."

He scowls and clenches his jaw. "We may be pirates, but we're not trained for that kind o' destruction."

"Explain," I demand. "My family is dead. I have a right to know why."

"They don't tell you about the wars your planet be fightin' in?"

"What wars? We're a peaceful people."

He rests his face against his hands before looking back up at me. "Soldiers did that to your village. Not pirates. Pirates are the ones who get blamed, since we come and take the things what gets left behind. We're scavengers. Not murderers. In general, that is."

I frown. "I can't trust you."

"Don't believe me then. I figured you would've noticed that they be wearing the same uniform, but that's all right. Who would––"

I tune him out as I think and remember. I hadn't noticed it. The same pistols. The same brown and scarlet jackets. Same boots.

How could I have been so stupid?

I close my eyes and rest back into the pillows. Then, I notice the dull pain gradually increasing in my left leg, just at the hip joint.

There's a sharp jab, then it returns to being dull. It pulsates and slowly grows. I scowl and pull back the covers slightly to touch my hip.

Metal. Bright, shining bronze. Down my entire leg to the tips of my toes. My eyes widen in horror.

"What have you done to me?" I demand. I try to make my leg move, and it does. It bends at the knee slightly. It's heavy and takes effort. I turn to him, my skin quickly growing dark from fear and anger. "_What have you done?_"

Anger briefly flashes in his eyes, before it's replaced with pity. "Do you really want to know?"

I don't want to listen to him. But I know I have to. I have to know.

Why didn't he leave me for dead?

"Here. Drink this. It's supposed to help the pain." He hands a cup to me.

It looks and smells like regular water, so I down it. Almost immediately, the pain begins to fade.


	2. Brass-Leg Lass

"You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me.

You've knocked me off my feet again, got me feeling like a nothing.

You, with you voice like nails on a chalkboard, calling me out when I'm wounded.

You, picking on the weaker man."

_**Mean, **_**by Taylor Swift**

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><p>We had been waiting in our ship for some time now. Watching. Just watchin' the action below. Watchin' and waitin' for the action to be over, for the soldiers to leave and the village t' be empty.<p>

Most o' the villagers were average-Joe humans in their nightclothes, with blasters and pistols clenched in their fists. T'was obvious they would lose from the start. Unprepared. Outnumbered. It weren't their fault they weren't trained for war.

I watched as the soldiers slowly, but surely, wound their way through the town, leaving bodies behind them as they went. A flash of purple caught me eye and I pulled out me spyglass to look closer.

A humanoid man, with bright purple skin, tapered ears and fangs like a hellcat, punched and bit at the soldiers in front of him. What was a Fiolene doing on Klyptar?

I looked around. Me crew seemed to all be watching the Fiolene man as well. They murmured bets with each other on who would win in the next fight.

I'd bet on the Fiolene, hands down.

I put my eye to me spyglass again and watched. Another fell before him. His knives dripped with an assortment of blue, green and red blood.

There was another flash of purple, then a blaster shot went straight through the Fiolene's opponent. The tentacled soldier exploded and the Fiolene looked up.

His face fell and I followed his gaze to a nearby rooftop.

Another purple Fiolene–– this one a lass–– ran along the house's roofs. Her face was less angled than the man's. She looked like an odd-miss-mash of human pieces and Fiolene pieces. Those luminous yellow eyes did not belong in a human face.

A blaster shot grazed her arm, and paused before disappearing into a crack between two houses.

I was wonderin' where she had gotten off to when she appeared again on the pavement. She rolled out from under the foot o' an olive-gray behemoth, then snapped back to a standing position and fired a round off at the Fiolene's next victim.

The shot plunged into the soldier's head, but it turned to look at her, giving the Fiolene enough time to shred the soldier open with one o' his long knives.

The Fiolene rushed to the girl–– who I could only assume were 'is daughter–– and barked an order at the girl. A look of obstinacy entered her face and then it relaxed and contorted again.

Her father fell to his knees, his skin turnin' a deathly white as the purple drained out o' his veins.

She screamed and the crew was trying to hold themselves together and prevent their own laughter. I wanted to chuckle me-self at her stupidity of distractin' people in a battle, but I was too int'rested in seein' her reaction.

Next I looks, her skin is black as night, her hands dripping with blood. She screams again and we can hear it clear as day.

A few men push her into a house and pull the door shut behind them.

The rest of the battle goes quickly. Men fall left and right. Lads right 'ahind their paps.

The soldiers are destroying the last of the villagers when I see the girl again. With four shots, she downs four o' their men, then turns tail and runs. They fire their blasters at her, but somehow manage to miss.

She darts around a street corner, the soldiers at her heels. Then, a shot is fired. Purple blood stains her left pant leg.

That'd be a shattered knee.

Something inside me wants me to help her.

Something else wants to laugh in her face.

The two prevent me from movin'.

We watch as she crawls forward, towards a body–– the body of a lad. One o' the soldiers steps on her arm and I can almost hear it crack under his boot.

With her remaining arm, she drags herself to his body and grips onto it tightly.

I look away as one of 'em smashes the back o' her head with his boot.

It's not long after that when the soldiers march out o' the town and towards the next one. Yarlsby lowers the ship to the docks and we haul backside to save what we can from the fire.

Caught up in a tide o' gatherin' rations and things we can sell at the next port, I forget about the girl until I nearly trip o're her body.

I almost pass her by, leaving her for dead, when I see the faint rise of her back as she breathes.

Fiolenes are int'restin' beings. When you save their life, they be indebted to you until they save your hide.

"Lads," I call. "This one's still breathing."

Scroop's angular face peers out of a doorway. "The Fiolene?"

"The half-Fiolene."

"What would we want with her?" he asks with a shrug.

"You didn't see the way she handled her pistol, did you?"

"Sure, but we've got––"

"We got none like her in the crew."

He shakes his head and sighs. "Sssilver, she's not worth the money it'll take to patch her up. Plusss, what'll prevent her from running away once she is?"

"Don't you know anything about the Fiolene?"

Scroop shrugs. "A little."

"She can't run. We save her life, she's loyal to us until she saves our backsides."

He looks away in thought, then looks back, a small smile on his arachnid face.

"Why not, Ssssilver?"

* * *

><p>When I finish me story, the poor lass is about to fall asleep. She stirs slightly and turns away.<p>

"Go away," she murmurs. "Just leave me alone."

"I saved your miserable life, Miss Tris. Is that any way to thank me?"

She stiffens and then turns back to me. Through gritted teeth, she replies, "No…"

"Rest up, and you can get started on repaying that debt."

Tris turns back away from me. Her breathing quickly becomes deep and steady.

I leave the cabin. No sense stayin' when the occupant be barely conscious. Not to mention, I've got a crew to command.

We were in transit to a nearby port what be friendly with the likes of us. Our ship be nearly bursting with goods and I'm certain the men be wantin' to take a break from work. I don't blame 'em.

I'd been flying under the Jolly Roger for nearly eight years, since me pap left me his ship. Eight years under the mast changes a man. Scroop be an excellent example. He used to be quiet as a kitten.

"Well, Mr. Scroop. How far we be from port?" I ask as I join him on the navigation deck.

"A good fifty leagues, Captain," he says quickly. "Ssshould be there in the next day or ssso."

I nod. "Good."

"How'sss the Fiolene?" Scroop says. "Doesss she underssstand that––"

"That we practically own her soul?" I ask. "I don't know. Didn't much come up."

He shrugs before heading down the stairs to the main deck.

"Scroop!" I call out after him. "Her name is Tris."

He turns around, a look of slight surprise and confusion on his face. "What does it matter what she's called?"

I let him leave because I wonder the same thing. What _does_ it matter?

Somehow, I feel it's important. I don't want her to feel… unwanted. She's just lost her family. Her home.

All the same, the crew comes first and anything else comes after and she ain't one o' the crew.

The hours pass slowly. Me men scurry back and forth, some swapping the decks, some re-arranging cargo–– most of 'em just trying to find some way to occupy their free time.

There's a lot of dead time between jobs and ports. It's maddening.

After listening to Lockgrim report on the state of the rigging, sails and our utter lack of rope, which somehow always disappears on us, I go back to my cabin to grab something to read.

I push through the door and then stop.

The Fio––_Tris_ is lying on the floor, struggling to stand.

"Are you all right?" I ask, taking a step towards her.

"Yes!" she barks. "I'm fine. I don't––"

She struggles to get balanced as she rights herself. Standing on her good leg, she turns to me. "What do you want?"

"To get a book," I reply, frowning. "Tis _my_ cabin you be usin', lass."

"Oh." She looks at the floor, then looks up, those ungodly yellow eyes staring straight at me. "You were just… Oh."

I arch one eyebrow. She's making less sense than an astrophysicist drawlin' about the space-time continuum or whatnot.

Walking to the bookshelf, I grab one of the few brown volumes I keep with me. Its spine is cracked and peeling.

I turn back to head out the door.

"Wait–– Silver––"

"It be Captain to you, missy."

"Captain," she says. She bites her lower lip and I can only wonder if it hurts her because of those needle-sharp fangs.

"What?" I ask flatly.

"Never mind, then."

She pulls herself back onto the bed.

I sigh. "What do you need, lass?"

"Can you help me walk?"

I set my book on my desk. "Help you walk? You can't walk by––"

"Why do you think I was on the floor?" she replies hotly. "I don't just enjoy falling––"

"Quit taking everything so seriously. Do you know how to be respectful?"

Her tapered ears somehow shift backwards a bit and she looks down, then begins to pick her fingernails in her lap.

She mumbles something.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you?"

"I'm sorry, Captain," she murmurs, then looks back. Her eyes are dull, like lanterns slowly going out. "Just forget about it. I can try walking tomorrow when I'm a bit better."

"Don't look at me like that," I snap. "It's not my fault your family's dead."

Her jaw clenches and her lips quiver, her eyes begin to fill with tears. She inhales through her nose quickly and then draws her brows together in a scowl. She clears her throat.

"I didn't think it was."

"Good. Just so's we're clear on that little bit," I says.

It's almost like she wilts before my very eyes.

Her shoulders sag as she bends over her legs and rests her head against her knees. Her back heaves and her sobbing begins quiet until she's boo-hooing like a sea squall.

I heave a sigh and look away from her, pressing my head against my hand.

I remember when me pap died. I was 19–– out with him on the ship. Suddenly, as we were walking across the main docks, he just dropped right in front of me.

It felt like my heart was going to stop with his, seeing his frozen gaze staring up at me.

"It'll be all right, Tris," I reply. "You'll come out of this storm just fine–– and stronger than you were before."

She looks up, the whites of her eyes tinged with pink. Her third eyelid flicks over the surface, mostly clearing away the tears. Then, she turns her head and look back at the wall.

I feel more helpless than a man with his wife in labor. I'm a pirate, damn it, not some great comforting––

"It's not Tris. My name is Eversly," she says. "I lied to you."

I raise one of my eyebrows. "I don't see how that––"

"Tris was my best friend. Tristan."

"Then why did you—"

"Because you're a pirate! How do you expect me to trust a pirate? You flatter a man while you cut his purse."

"Now, hold on there," I says. "You don't know the first thing about being a pirate."

"And what's that?" she demands. "Turn your prisoners into freaking cyborgs?"

"You're an indentured servant, not a prisoner. Plus, it weren't me choice to take your leg off, lass. That be the surgeon's prerogative."

"Fine," she snaps. "Then what's the first thing I need to know about being a pirate?"

"Cheating a cheater ain't cheating."

"So, then, by extension, stealing from a thief isn't stealing?"

"Exactly." I smile at her. "Good day."

I grab my book from where I had set it and stride out the door, letting it slam behind me.

* * *

><p>"You want to take food to her, Captain?" Jardin asks, holding a bowl of brown stew with a spoon stuck in it. "I can, if you have other things to do."<p>

I shake my head. "It's fine. I need to get some things anyways."

Grabbing the bowl outta his hand, I head back to my cabin. She must be bored out of her mind if she can't get up and walk around.

I open the door and look in.

She's nestled between the covers, her face turned towards me. Some of her dark brown tresses hide her face.

I set the bowl down on me desk, then head to me trunk. I rummage through it, grabbing a blanket and––

"Who's–– oh," she says. I turn around in time to see her sitting up with a wide yawn.

"Sleep well, Princess?"

"Princess?"

"You're the one sleeping in the bed. As far as I'm concerned, you're the most spoiled––"

"I'll move if you want me to," she says quickly. "I want to move. I don't want to stay sitting here. It's boring."

"Then get up and move," I snap. "Don't complain about it to me."

"Aye, aye, Captain," she replies flatly.

I watch with my arms crossed as she pulls the covers back and turns so that her feet barely touch the floor. The stark contrast between the bronze of the prosthetic and the purple of her skin is strange.

She slowly puts weight on her legs as she stands. Holding her arms out to balance herself, she manages to stand solidly.

"Nice work. That wasn't so hard was it?"

Eversly frowns. "That's the easy part."

She moves her flesh-leg forward, then tries to move her brass-leg. It jerks slightly as it tries to keep up.

Then, it collapses underneath her weight and she topples towards the floor.

She braces herself with her good arm and tries to pick herself up.

"Here, lass. You can't do this on your own. You'll kill yourself."

"Why would you care? You're a pirate and you don't even know me."

"I have a vested interest in you living for at least a while longer. Now, grab me arm."

I bend over towards her and hold out my arm to her. She glances at it, then tentatively reaches out and latches hold of it.

Leaning only a bit on my arm, she rights herself and then lets go.

"You can hold on, lass. For now, at least. We can get you some kind of cane tomorrow so you can––"

"Thanks," she says, giving me a small smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "You're a bit of a… scurvy dog?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Oh really? Be that an insult, lass?"

"Sort of. I mean, you're kind of rude and you smell bad and––"

"How's that _kind of_ an insult then?"

"Well, you're being nice now," she says with a shrug. "You're bearable when you're being nice."

I roll me eyes. "That be a nice thought, lass. Now, let's get movin'. Do you want to walk or no?"

"All right," she says, before taking a step forward. "I think it just isn't synchronized to my body's electric signals yet."

"That's nice."

She frowns, but puts another step down on the floor, bracing herself when she almost falls.

"It hurts when I put weight on it," she says. "I think the socket isn't fully healed."

I put my head back and groan. "Why can't you just walk like––"

"I'm sorry," she says shortly. "I'd better––"

"Quit cutting me off, missy."

"Well you're cutting over my––"

"You owe me, Miss Eversly–– or whatever your name is! I saved your blasted life!"

"I didn't ask you to!"

"But I did!" I storm. "Aren't you glad you're not dead?! Aren't you glad to be alive, with a heart beating in your chest?"

"_No!_" she yells. "No, I'm not happy to be alive! There! Are you happy now?"

I pull my arm away from her. "You ungrateful little wretch."

"Why should I be glad to be alive when everyone I love is dead and I have almost no future! I'm at the mercy of a band of cutthroat, lying, stealing, scheming, looting _pirates_! And you want me to be happy?"

"Don't you think your family would?"

"Would want me to be what?! Would want me to become a pirate–– like you all?"

"No," I says, shaking my head. "Happy to be alive."

She looks away, and shifts her weight onto her flesh-leg. "That's not fair."

"It's entirely fair–– and a valid point, if I do say so me-self."

"Just leave me alone!" she yells before she pushes away from me and stumbles back to the bed.

I storm out the door and slam it behind me. Leaning against it, I take a huge breath to try and call me thoughts and temper. It'd been a long time since I'd lost me temper.

That ungrateful little urchin.

"I heard yelling," Scroop says as he taps one of his legs in front of me. "Sssounds like sshe'll be quite the handful. Not regretting the––"

"She's angry now, but she'll be fine," I says through gritted teeth.

He laughs. "You're too soft, Silver."

"I'm not soft," I reply. "And who're you to criticize your Captain?"

"I'm you're firsst mate, Sssilver. Just offering sssome friendly advice."

"Well, I didn't ask for it."

I push past him, shove my hat down over my head and stride down the hall.

Who's he to question me?


	3. Ports & Pirates

_"I finally found out how long I can hang on._

_I've got this all wrong. _

_My heart is scared, my heart is gone." _

**-_Falling Out of Trees_, by Barcelona**

* * *

><p>I woke what I assumed to be the next morning more tired than I had the night before. The skin around my eyes still felt swollen and itched like crazy from the salt in my tears.<p>

It's strange how one fitful night's "sleep" and crying your eyes out can make the pain as dull as a butter knife. I don't feel anything.

I feel as dead as I want to actually be.

The ceiling is made of a soft, evenly sanded wood. I stare at it in the silence that permeates every bit of my master's cabin.

Master has a weird sound to it that makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

How about the Captain's cabin?

Much better.

It's no secret about my race's condition. About us being bound to the people who save us. People take advantage of us sometimes. It doesn't normally work out for them, but they try to anyways.

I was saved because I seemed like an asset.

Not because they valued another being's life. Because I was _valuable_.

I pull the covers closer to my face.

I don't want to get out of bed. I'm so tired. It's work just to move my arms or to breathe regularly.

Time passes quickly, so it seems. The window that looks out onto the world outside is filled with light that slowly changes its angle until a bright green-yellow star shines straight into my eyes.

I turn my head away to not have to look at it.

"Rise and shine, lass!" says that loud, gruff voice as he bursts through the door.

The captain.

I don't respond, keeping my back turned away from him.

"Up and at-em, Eversly," he says. "We're going to get you to walk today."

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" I groan. "I'll walk on my own when I'm ready."

"Well, I say you're ready now. Now, get those lazy bones and gears outta that bed, or so help me, I'll drag you from it and toss you in the brig."

At the word brig, my mind becomes sharper. That's the last place I want to be right now.

"All right, all right! I'm up!" I say as I yank the covers back. I'm still wearing the bloodstained clothes that I was wearing that...

I take a deep breath to try and still the grief that floods through me. Biting my tongue to keep back tears and focus on a different pain, I suppress it to the best of my abilities.

"I got you some new clothes, outta the goodness of me heart."

"Yeah, right," I mutter under my breath.

"What's that lass? I can't hear what you said over the sound of your gratitude for having something other than blood-stained, cut-up and filthy rags to wear."

"Thanks," I say sharply.

"Thank you, what? I thought we'd been over this, lass."

I grit my teeth. "Captain."

"Excellent. Now, I'll leave you to change."

He leaves just as quickly as he came, leaving the new clothes sitting on my bed.

They're men's clothes.

I wrinkle my nose at the rough feeling of the linen, but, hey. He's right. It's better than what I have on.

Still seated on the bed, I pull my shirt over my head, being careful to not get it caught in the brace. It lands on the floor as I toss it away.

My bra is filthy, but it'll have to––

There's a long swatch of cream-color fabric in the bundle of clothes. Am I supposed to use this as...?

I pull the bra off, then wrap the fabric tightly around my chest, pinning it with a safety pin that had replaced a button on my old shirt.

It'll have to do until I can get a replacement.

I pull the baggy shirt over my head, then carefully slip out of my bottoms.

It's weird to see the metal merging with my flesh. It's been itching, and there's some scar tissue, but other than that, it's been inserted well, from what I can see.

I pull on the pants and yank on the drawstrings to make them tighter. It works, but still... not perfect.

The clothes might not be my first pick, but they're clean. Ish.

Flopping back down on the bed, I continue to stare at the ceiling until I hear a knock at the door.

"Lass? You ready?"

"No," I say quickly. "I'm still changing."

There's silence, then he says, "All right."

I smile to myself and close my eyes, ready to try to sleep again.

I sit straight up as the door bursts open and he stomps through. He scowls at me, his dark brows bunching together.

"Changing, huh?"

"What would you have done if I really was changing?" I demand.

He shrugs. "I don't know. If I had thought standing here while you did would improve the situation, I would've stayed. But that didn't sound like a good idea."

"No! It most certainly isn't!" I say, my cheeks growing hot at the casual way he said something that... indecent.

"Am I embarrassing you, lass?" he asks, a slight grin twisting his features.

"No."

"Don't lie to me. Tell me the truth."

I feel my chest tighten as I try to deny it again. I can't speak.

"Yes," flows out of my mouth and I clap my hands to it.

"So she can tell the truth," he says, his smile spreading across his face like magma across a mountain.

"Yes, I can tell the truth," I say. "What are you? An idiot?"

"I forbid you from insulting me."

I pull myself up off the bed, swaying slightly as I try to stand. "I can insult you if I want to, you loathsome excuse for––"

"So it doesn't apply to some things, but it does to others?"

What? What is he talking about?

Is he trying to figure out what he can make me do and what he can't?

"It was worth a try." He shrugs. "Now, come on, lass. Leave your bile and bitterness and let's get you on your feet."

"Fine," I murmur. I take a step forward, then manage to stumble my way to the desk without falling over.

I grip onto it as I steady myself.

"Don't scratch it up, okay?" the Captain says. "It were me father's. Don't want anythin' to happen to it."

"Do you have that cane you mentioned yesterday?" I ask. "I don't want to make you––"

"Nope. You're going to learn to walk again without one. The sooner you walk without crutches, the better off you'll be."

"But I don't––"

He looks at me, his brown eyes meeting mine. "I won't let you fall."

I shouldn't want to trust this man. He's nothing but a loutish, brutish pirate. And yet...

I want to trust him. He sounds so sincere.

Snap out of it. He's a pirate. He's probably a master of counterfeiting both coin and emotion.

And yet, the words find their way to my lips.

"All right."

He holds out his hand for me to take. I grab hold of it and take a step forward, using him as a support too much for my own comfort.

But do I really have a choice?

He guides me out the door. It's one foot after another, even thought my metal one is much more jerky and takes longer to move.

I try waiting until my foot is touching the ground for I shift my weight onto it and that seems to help a bit, but it doesn't solve its unresponsiveness.

The Captain glances at me as we reach the stairs leading to the decks above. It feels like it's been forever since I've seen outside and felt the heat of a star on my skin.

We take the stairs together, with me leaning into him heavily. He feels stronger than the copse-wood tree near my house...

It feels like my own sadness clubs me over the head, then drags me into its undertow. I try to sever its contact and push it away.

The star's light beats onto the upper deck. Other beings of almost every shape, color and size hurry about the deck doing their jobs.

This world is a cold one. I can feel the goose bumps rising on my skin as a cool breeze blows past us.

The Captain holds his arm out farther. He walks and I stumble along, following after him. My leg still feels heavier than it once did, but I can already feel a slight difference in its responsiveness.

Some of the crew stop their work to watch us. I glance at their faces with a scowl, expecting to combat hostility.

To my surprise, most of them just seem... curious.

I look away and focus on walking.

After a bit, the Captain stops.

"You're doing pretty well. Think you can handle this on your own?"

"I can try," I say before letting go of his arm and slowly proceeding forward. I work on re-balancing my weight to compensate for the heaviness and its lag.

I walk to the ship's rail and look over. There's nothing but open space below, with tiny stars twinkling lucidly in the distance.

I step a bit from the rail, then keep walking. I try to walk faster, focusing less on accuracy and more on speed.

I feel it seize underneath me and I tumble forward. Throwing my arms forward, I prepare to catch myself.

I don't hit the floor, though.

An arm around my waist pulls me back to a normal standing position, then lets go.

I don't turn around. I know it was the Captain.

I slow down and walk by myself for a bit, letting the kink work itself out. I pick up my leg and practice bending it a bit.

"You probably should focus on going slow for now, Miss Eversly," he says, taking a stand in front of me.

"Yeah. So I figured," I reply with a shrug.

"Would you like to––"

"Captain!" a blue-green being shouts. "The shipment of ropes we just received have just gone–– Oh. My apologies, Captain. Am I interrupting?"

"Only a little," the Captain replies, glancing back at me. "Lockgrim, this is Eversly, who––"

"Ah!" the man replies, his large frogeyes making an audible click as he blinks. He brings his webbed hand to his chest and makes a quick bow. "The Fiolene. Pleasure." He turns back to the Captain. "Sir, what do we do about the rope?"

"Did it just get misplaced?" I ask. "Maybe one of the crew keeps putting it in a place he figures other people will––"

"We've searched the Prisma from stem to stern. No sign of it. Or any of our other rope."

The Captain sighs. "Yes, yes. All right, Lockgrim. Just get some more and keep it somewhere safe this time. All right?"

His wide mouth widens into what I assume to be a grin and he salutes. "Aye, aye, Captain!"

He marches off and we watch him hop onto the docks.

"Ropes, huh?" I ask, turning to the Captain. "That's a strange thing to have constantly go missing. At our house, it used to be buttons. All the buttons on our shirts just... gone..."

Memories of my father bringing home yet another jar of pearly white buttons and handing them to my mother. Mother sitting with Tristan's mother while they sewed. The crisp, white shirt my mother always made Father wear to church.

When I'm aware of the world again, I realize I have tears running down my cheeks. I clear them away with a few quick blinks, then look back up at the Captain.

"I'm sorry," I say quickly. "It's... just..."

My nose is running, so I inhale quickly to try to clear it. I wipe the tears on my face away with the baggy shirtsleeve.

"Let's get you back down to the cabin, lass," the Captain says flatly. He holds out his arm and I take it.

The tears come back and I can't make them stop this time, no matter how many times I blink them away.

As we reach the bottom of the stairs, the Captain pulls his arm away, and shoves a handkerchief into my hand.

"Wipe your eyes," he says.

I quickly run the cloth over my eyes, then hold it out for him to take back.

"Keep it," he says. "The first few weeks are always the hardest. If me memory be anything to serve by, you'll be needing it again."

I nod, wipe my eyes again and then shove it into my pant's pockets.

"Come on. Hurry up now."

I take his arm again and I manage to get back to the cabin without the tears starting again.

After I open the cabin door, I turn around and look up at him. He's at least six inches taller than me–– just like my Father had been.

"Who did you lose?" I ask.

He scowls. "Why would you think I've lost somebody?"

"I don't know. Just seems like something someone with experience in grief would've said."

He looks away and says. "Me Father. Almost a decade ago. Now, go rest up. We'll be leaving to head back to Klyptar soon and I want you ready to start earning your keep."

The Captain closes the door behind him. This time, though, it's quietly. Not the slamming he generally does.

Is he faking this? I mean, maybe his father did die but a pirate grieve his father's death?

I don't know.

Maybe... maybe I misjudged him?

* * *

><p>Escaping my grief was my goal at this point. Anything distracting that I could get my hands on would satisfy me.<p>

Which is why I took the liberty of reading the Captain's books.

The first I had picked up was a journal filled to the brim with notes that were absolutely illegible to me. I had put it back in disappointment.

The second was more promising.

Almost as soon as I had flopped onto the bed and opened the book of sailor's tales, I had been sucked in.

It wasn't until I heard a knock at the door that I bothered to look up and notice that it was nearly dark outside.

Which would explain why it was getting harder and harder to read.

I shoved the worn volume under the pillow and sat up as the door was opening wide.

"Captain says you're to come to the galley," says a voice I don't recognize. It's low-pitched, rather than the mid-tone of the Captain's speech. "Miss?"

A head peaks around the door. A man with thick, shaggy fur that glows with bright colors enters the room.

"All right," I reply uncertainly. I haul myself off the bed and to my feet. I'm walking more so with a limp than a stumble now.

I follow behind him. He's missing a leg too, but instead of a mechanical one like mine, his is wooden and begins just below a second joint in his leg that juts out behind his knee.

We wind through the halls, then go up the stairs to the surface. I keep my hands on the wall to help support myself.

Outside, the yellow-green star is disappearing from sight and the night is growing colder. Lights blaze in the houses and taverns surrounding the docks. I can hear plenty of laughter and shouts and the general bustle of the port.

"Come on, Miss," he says, motioning for me to follow him back below decks and down another flight of stairs. I stumble down them to find a room lit by candles and the fire of an oven.

The various beings at the tables look up at me, pausing their conversation. A silence lulls over them all and I feel like crawling out of my skin with all those eyes on me. I just… I just want to blend in. Is that so hard?

"Ah! Here's the lass who's been causing so much trouble!" the Captain says, standing up. He has a tankard in one hand and a smile across his face than I can only assume to be put there through the aid of large quantities of alcohol. "Crew, this is Eversly. Eversly, the crew. Grab a plate. Come over here. Sit, sit, sit."

He tromps over to me and pushes me towards the table he was sitting at. I trip over my own feet and catch myself on the edge of the table. I peek over the top of it at the four other crewmembers.

"This be Mr. Scroop, me first mate," the Captain says, gesturing to a hulking, spiny, spider-like being with amber colored eyes that take up most of his small face. Mr. Scroop's skinny legs are spread out in a relaxed position and he makes no effort to sit down.

"And you already know Lockgrim." I nod to the frogman and me bobs his head pleasantly. His blue skin glistens with moisture in the were-light of the candles. He licks his frog-lips with his long, pink tongue.

The Captain gestures to a maroon-colored slug-man with eyestalks that project out of his shoulders. "This is Maurice."

Maurice clicks his claws in my general direction.

"And, then Hadaran."

A sand-colored pirate with tusks and large, curling horns projecting from his head nods in my general direction. He murmurs, "How'dy do?"

"Take a sseat, girl," Mr. Scroop says, his voice a whirring hiss.

I nod quickly, and scramble into a chair. The way he glares at me makes my hair stand on end.

"Do you want something to drink, lass?" the Captain asks, nudging me and slopping some his drink down the back of my brand new shirt.

"Water, please," I say, remember my father's admonishments against alcohol.

"Just water? No ale? Rum?" the Captain bursts.

"I don't drink," I murmur before turning my eyes back to the table. A long tentacle scoots under my nose and sets a bowl and crusty piece of bread on the table before me.

I look up and glance over at a large octopus-looking being. It winks one huge eye at me before returning to the pot over the stove.

"Oh, that's Yark, our cook," Hadaran says. "Don't talk too much, but seems she's happy to have another of the female gender on board."

I nod quickly, then pick up my spoon. The bowl is filled with an oily broth and short, stubby noodles that have the texture of velvety leather, but are slightly easier to chew. There're a few hunks of dark brown meat at the bottom.

Slowly sipping on the steaming concoction, I watch as the Captain and the others at the table begin the card game I had interrupted.

"Stick it or have it?" Hadaran asks Maurice.

"Have it."

Hadaran slaps a card facedown in front of him. Maurice groans.

"Broken."

"What are you playing?" I ask as Hadaran turns to Lockgrim and asks the same question.

"One-and-Thirty," Hadaran says as he tosses a card down. Lockgrim smiles and bobs his head again. Hadaran moves on to Mr. Scroop.

"Oh," I say and spoon another bite of soup into my mouth.

Tristan and I used to play card games. They were games like War, Fisherman and Rich Man, Poor Man. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him, dealing out cards, playing and getting into squabbles that his mother or my mother would have to break up.

I look up, my eyes swimming with tears. The crewmembers aren't paying any attention to me. I grab the Captain's handkerchief out of my pocket and run it across my eyes, then blink several times.

As I look up, the Captain is staring at me, his face blank. His eyebrows raise and come together for a fraction of a second before relaxing.

I force my lips into a small smile and clench the kerchief in my clammy hands, wringing it between my fingers.


	4. Call A Spade A Spade

"I'm in the business of misery, let's take it from the top."

**-_Misery Business_, by Paramore**

* * *

><p>The light outside of me eyelids is blinding, so I keeps them shut tight and just listen to the sounds of the ship.<p>

As I get used to the light, I slowly open me eyes and look around.

I'm slumped against a corner of me cabin. Staring at a purple-skinned girl sleeping in my bed.

This would explain why my back hurts.

I sit up with a groan and a yawn that travels from my toes, though my shoulders and into my jaw. The light isn't so bad.

Eversly stirs and opens those yellow eyes of hers. She blinks once, then rolls over, keeping her back to me. I hear her sigh deeply before she drifts off t' sleep again.

Swaying slightly as I stand up, I clutch me head. I'm seeing spots and the world goes fuzzy-black before clearing up again. I head over to the lass and rip away the covers.

"Up and at 'em, lazy gears," I says. "Time to greet the day."

She groans. "Five more minutes."

"Nope. We're moving you to the crew's quarters today. Kiss that bed good-bye."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because I'm a cold, heartless, terrible pirate who doesn't believe in givin' females special treatment."

"What about the injured?" she says, beginning to sit up.

"Injured my eye. You're fine, especially with all that quick-healing medicine we gave yah. Now get up or I'll drag you outta that bed and tie you buck-naked to the main mast."

I'd never seen a woman move so quickly. She was out of bed and zippin' out the door before I could say boo.

I reach out and grab her hand before she can slip into the hall. "Where you going?"

"Away," she says quickly. "Far away."

"Nope. You're coming with me. We have Tooly–– our cabin boy–– to swab them decks, but you can help York in the kitchen."

She frowns. "It's because I'm a female, isn't it?"

"Nope. Because you're injured," I says, putting quotes around "injured."

Rolling her eyes, she huffs a quick, "Whatever," before limping out of the room and down the hall.

Rummaging through my trunk for a change of shirt, I file away this morning's latest threat for use later. Wonder how long it'll work.

The shirt I drag outta the depths of me chest smells half as bad as the one I'm wearing, so I yank off the one on, toss it to the floor and pull the other one over me head. Maybe Eversly will know how to do the laundry.

Eversly.

Since she came aboard, been seeming like our way of life–– maybe just my way of life–– been changed. She needs to learn to walk. She needs to be comforted. She needs this. She needs that.

I need me some pain block. My back is killing me.

After rummaging through my desk drawers, I pull out a little bottle of pills and pop two back dry. Be nice to have some rum with it, but we needs a sober captain today.

I stride out me door and down the hallway, up to the deck and down into the kitchen, where Eversly is perched on a counter, chomping down on a Montressor purp while she watches Yark skin some flesh-colored tubers.

She looks over to me, her purp frozen halfway from her mouth. Her eyebrows furrow for a fraction of a second before she returns her attention to Yark, whose six available arms work with the speed of eight men.

Yark pauses and looks up at me, her three ice-blue eyes studying me before she murmurs in her strange accent.

"Captine, you be nee-ding somethine, Sir?"

"No, Yark. Just checking up on your new charge. Be sure you put her to work. Her arm be healed up enough to scrub pots and pans and whatnot."

She pulses gently, which I take for a nod, before she returns to her work.

I glance back at Eversly. Her tapered ears shift back, like an angry horse, and she bares her fangs in a snarl. Those eyes–– God help me, those unnatural yellow eyes with their feral slits for pupils that constrict as she looks at me.

Turning away slowly, I try to casually return to the decks before letting the shivers run through me spine.

"Mr. Scroop!" I call out as I mount the stairs to the navigation deck. "How long––"

"About two dayss," he replies sharply, without looking up from a stack of papers. "Lockgrim tellsss me our rope keepsss disssappearing. Do you have any ssuspicionsss?"

"Who would want to steal rope?" I ask. "It don't go for much in the market."

"But you have enough and it'll pay your bond," he says, glancing up at me.

"You think Tooly is stealing the rope?" I demand. I think on the peg-legged lad who glows like a lantern. His previous crew gambled him away in a One-and-Thirty match, leaving him to us. "He seems happy here. Does his work, like the good lad he is and gets to be one o' the crew."

Scroop raises an eyebrow and grunts non-commitally. He returns to his work with a mutter of, "Sssoft."

I flick the insult away and stride back to me cabin. A captain rarely be needed outside a mission or battle. Scroop mostly take care o' things for me.

For the next couple hours, I loiter in me cabin, reading and sorting through me laundry. The whole room smell sickly sweet, like pain medicine, blood and sickness, so I pops open the windows to let in the fresh air from space's artificial atmosphere.

It don't take much longer after that for me stomach to start rumbling with hunger. I wonder what Eversly be doing right this moment.

Rather than visit the galley, I goes to the supplies room to grab me some crackers and a jerky made from some kind of meat.

In the crates behind me, I hear some shuffling and then a muffled curse. I crane me head around and look to see that girl staring back at me, a book in her lap and a purp in her mouth.

"Don't you know we don't have an unlimited supply of purps?" I ask, taking a stand directly in front of her. "How many is that for you today?"

She frowns. "My second. It's better than some of the other stuff we have to eat."

"You don't like Yark's cooking?"

"She doesn't cook for lunch."

I nod. "Fair point."

She stands up, closes the book and wipes her mouth, the last of her purp getting wiped across her sleeve. "If you'll excuse me, I have to return to work."

Slipping past me, she tries to hurry away, but I grab onto her wrist, then take the book.

"Where'd you get something like this?" I ask. "You been steal––"

"I was going to return it."

"O-ho! So it don't belong to you. We'll make a pirate of you yet."

The purple of her cheeks becomes darker and she rips her hand from me. With one cold glance of those eyes, she turns away and storms up the steps to get back to the kitchen.

I hold the book up to me face and read the cover.

Sailor's Book of Tales.

So she likes stories, does she? Interesting. It's a wonder she ain't more... I don't know. Of a dreamer, I guess. She don't try to escape, or win over Captain and crew or become one of us.

She likes the outskirts, too. Like a pirate what has no crew. She did just lose kin and country, so I guess I don't blame her, but she's closer to being one of us than she realizes.

We'll make a scalawag of her yet.

* * *

><p>The rest of the afternoon be spent playing cards and doing what chores needs doing and getting ready for scavenging the next town. The rope still be nowhere to be found, much to Lockgrim's croaking dismay.<p>

I look around the room to find a place to sit and see Eversly slumped in the corner, picking away at a lump of bread. And an empty spot right next to her.

Taking a seat in the empty space on the bench, I set my food down and nudge her with me elbow. "You awake there, lass?"

She nods her head.

"Tiring day?"

She shrugs.

"You know we're going back to your home planet, right?"

She looks up at me, cocking her head to the side. "What?"

"Those soldiers be on the war-path. So, we thinks we'll clean up after them. It's a nice job. Not many folks what knows about it."

"So you're going to pick the carcass clean?" she murmurs, her gaze turning towards the table.

"What that be, lass? You're not making much sense."

"Pirates are all the same–– like vultures. You just wait for someone else to do the killing before you descend to strip the carcass clean. It's disgusting."

"Better than doing the killing, though," I reply. "And it puts bread on the table. Not too shabby."

"But it's not honest work," she snaps.

"How ain't it?"

"Stealing the possessions of the dead is almost everything but honest."

"But if they be dead," I reason, "they has no need of their things and we does. I sees no problem."

"Grave robbers are the only ones with less respect."

I shrug. "Believe what you want, but it's much better than attacking some merchant ship to steal goods. Nobody gets hurt and property what belongs to no man gets reclaimed. It's beneficial, like the vultures. Nature's clean-up crew, lass. If it ain't us, who else will?"

"I hope you don't expect me to join you," she replies hotly.

"To be honest, I was hoping you would. If you're gonna be a pirate, you've gotta––"

"But what if I don't want to be a pirate?"

I look over at Hadaran, who quickly looks back to his meal.

"It don't matter," I says. "We can find other ways for you to be useful. Swabbing the deck naked seems like a good start."

Her cheeks turn a deep purple and she clenches her fists. Through gritted teeth, she spits out, "I'll go on your stupid scavenging party."

I smile. "Thank yee, lass."

"On one condition," she says. "That we take any survivors with us and drop them off at the nearest inhabited port. They don't have to stay and they won't be stored in the brig."

"You seem to have closed every loop hole in that condition," I reply. "I'll bite. Any one what's still living and breathing can have safe passage on me ship."

"Good." She nods sharply and rips a chunk of the loaf off with her teeth.

"Well," I says, "Now that be settled, why not play some dice? I'm sick of One-and-Thirty."

Hadaran nods. "Sounds like a plan, Sir. Want me to grab the dice or...?"

"Why not?" I shrug. "We'll play here. Eversly will play too. High time we give an introductory course in pirate merriment."

I stands up and walk over to the kitchen, grab a bottle of rum from one of the cupboards and then return to the table. I uncork the drink and take a swig of it, enjoying the warm taste it has as it funnels down me throat.

"First rule of pirate merriment," I says, leaning over to nudge Eversly. "Rum."

"There's not even a verb in that sentence," she says. "How can it be a rule?"

"Don't have to be grammatically correct to make sense," I reply. "Here. Have a sip."

She shakes her head. "Sorry, Captain, but I don't drink."

"Well, why the hell not?" I demand. "Something against alcohol in the religion you follows?"

"No." She shakes her head. "Fiolenes can't hold their liquor."

I raise me eyebrows. "Uh-huh."

"My dad," she said, a small smile brightening her face, "could only take a sip of beer before he was drunk as a peach orchard pig."

"How drunk is that?" I ask.

"Enough to make a grown man buzzed and dizzy."

"Just a sip, huh?" Hadaran asked. "But you're half human. Couldn't you hold more––?"

"Low alcohol tolerance is apparently a dominant trait," Eversly replied. "I've tried a sip of... I think it was beer. Anyways, it was worse for me than my father. Blacked out in a matter of minutes. Woke up the next morning with a hangover to split your skull."

"Well." I bring the rum bottle up to my lips and take a quick drink. "More for me, then."

Eversly nodded. "Now that that's settled, what's the next rule of pirate merriment?"

"Girls," Hadaran said without missing a beat. "But since we've got none here..." He winked at Eversly and her lips quirked into a small smile.

"All right. Then, what's the third rule?"

"Games–– Preferably the ones involving cards, dice and plenty of coin," I reply.

"Fourth rule?" she asks.

"Pirates don't much care for rules," I says. "Three's 'bout as much as we can handle at one time."

Eversly smiles again, those white fangs flashing. She turns to Hadaran as he divvies out the dice into the cups and her third eyelid flicks over her yellow irises, making them more muted than the brilliant cheese-yellow color they normally be.

"The game's simple enough," he says. "We each has six dice. We flip the cups over, and then bet on how many of a certain dice face is on the table. Bidding goes in ascending order. Can't do two threes after someone's done three fours and the like. Make sense?"

She pauses, then nods hesitantly. "I think I've got it."

"Well, excellent," I says. "Let the games begin."

* * *

><p>Eversly peered over the edge of the ship as we docked in the nearly decimated village, filled with poor folks whats been dead for who knows how long. Survivors be sounding like a distant dream of an idealistic, purple-skinned lady.<p>

"I don't think I ever came to this village. Where are we?"

"About five hundred kilometers from your village," I replies. "Seemed far enough away."

She pauses. "What direction are the soldiers moving?"

"How should we know?" Hadaran says, unfolding a canvas sack. "We just, in your words, pick the carcass clean."

Eversly's cheeks grow darker. I can only assume it to be her equivalent to blushing. She bites her lower lip, as though holding back something she'd like to say. She stays silent, though, until Hadaran hands her another sack and says, "You'll be sticking with me. Right?"

He glances over at me and I incline my head. "Sounds good. She's not to leave your side. Show her the ropes. Can't have a useless body on board."

Eversly shrugged. "Let's get this over with."

The rest of the crew—excepting Tooly, Lockgrim and Yark—file off me ship. The Prisma's golden wood seems to glow and flash in the sunlight. Her solar sails flutter in the breeze like a lady's skirt in a dance. Me heart swells with pride.

"Let's head out, men. We knows what we're lookin' for. Hop to it."

They disperse, automatically falling into their default groups, which tend to just be the shifts they works. Dog shifters with dog shifters. Day shifters with day shifters. Int'resting to see hows they all split off.

Hadaran motions to Eversly to follow him and she dashes over. She looks like his shadow as they head down the ash-coated cobblestone.

Scroop and Maurice brandish their sacks and glance at me before they head into the village. I follow right behind them.

As the job progresses, I can't help but feelings more and more useless. My mind be wandering off and I can't stick to me job. Me mind keeps wondering how Eversly be fairing. How Hadaran is doing at being a teacher.

Then, our groups bump together. We files out the door of an house and nearly run into Hadaran and Eversly.

Eversly's sack is nearly half-way full, with Hadaran's nearly three-quarters. He's pulling coin from the pockets of the fallen, who've begun to rot and smell to kingdom come.

She holds her nose as she bends over to examine something she might collect. Tears fill her eyes and I can't tell if that be due to the smell or the loss of life.

"We should give them all a proper burial," she murmurs. "Instead of leaving the buzzards to pick their flesh clean."

"We don't have time," Hadaran snaps. "We've talked about this."

She purses her lips, but don't pursue the topic further.

A door into the next house is ajar and I motion for Hadaran and Eversly to follow me group in.

I regret that decision instantly.

The streets be different. Bodies of full-grown men be one thing, and that be what slump across the streets, along with the bodies of the soldiers.

Bodies of toddlers, children and women be a whole other matter.

A sack drops to the ground with a loud thud and I look back. Eversly has dropped her collections in favor of holding her hands across her mouth in shock.

The body of a woman holds onto the body of her toddler as they lay across the floor. The toddler has a shot clean through the chest.

The mother, a shot through the head.

Eversly can't hold back her tears and she begins to sob. Hadaran rolls his eyes and puts his sack down. He puts one arm around her.

I feel a prickle of envy. That should be my job. Or, it normally would be.

Part of me feels relief that I don't have to deal with more emotional women. Until she starts speaking.

"How can you be so unfeeling? How can you be so soulless to be able to walk past these bodies and feel nothing?!" she demands through her tears. "Must be nice to be emotionless as well as soulless!"

"Now look here, lass," I says, turning around and pointing a finger at her. "It be a shame these folks died, but getting emotional about it won't make them magically come back to life. You can shed as many tears as you want, but when it comes down to it, dead is dead."

Her face contorts into a scowl, her eyes still shimmering with tears.

"You disgust me."

"_Then get out!_" I says. "Go back to the ship and wait there with Yark until we're done."

"Fine!" she screams. "I didn't want to be here in the first place!"

"And take your sack with yeh! None of us wants to carry your collection. That's _your_ job."

"Aye-aye, _Captain_," she says with a sneer, before grabbing up her back and storming out the front door.

Scroop looks at me, his red, fanged face smiling. "Well done, Captain."

I clench me jaw.

We finish the job before sundown, luckily, and my stomach rumbles with anticipation of some of Yark's cooking. And, I guess, Eversly's. But it makes me mad just to think about that ungrateful waif.

We drop our sacks with all the other's, to be sorted and gone over in the light of the morning, and head down into the Mess to grab some rum and whatever Yark cooked up.

No purple-skinned lass.

"Probably just off pouting," Hadaran says to me with a shrug after I mention it to him. "She's been here all day, so she probably ate before we came back."

I nod. "All the same, I'm gonna go make sure she's on board and hasn't tried anything stupid."

"Aye, Captain."

Leaving me stew and rum, I head up, then out onto the deck and back down. I pass me cabin, then get to the crew's quarters.

No purple-skinned lass.

I poke me head into me cabin.

No Eversly.

I head back to the Mess and says to the crew, "Eversly's missing. We need to look for her."

We search every nook and cranny in me ship.

No blasted, purple-skinned lass.

Damn it.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>I'd like to thank Persevera for the title of this chapter- Call A Spade A Spade- which was mentioned in her review of Chapt. 2 of this work. Her (and everyone at the Review's Lounge, Too's) reviews have really helped this work become even better.

I know I haven't updated in, almost literally, forever. For many months. Sorry about that. :/ Life happens and schoolwork beckoned. Now that summer vacay is here, you can expect more frequent (if not weekly) updates. :)

Your comments are always appreciated, even if it's "OMG luv dis ! plz update!" Any form of love (or luv ^_-) is still encouragement.

+Quasar


	5. Foundling's Find

**A/N:** Hello, Readers! My apologies for such a long time between updates. School and work and life decided to double-gank my muse and crush its very soul, but it's respawned more recently so Eversly is back and locked and loaded for the next chapter of her and the Captain's tale.

Please R&R. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to get feedback. Not only that, but it gives me motivation to get my rear in gear and give y'all updates! Even a tiny "Good story! More!" or "plz update" is an encouragement. Feel free to leave constructive criticism as well! I can always stand for some improvement! ^^ XOX

* * *

><p>"And I don't want the world to see me,<p>

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand."

-_Iris_, by the Goo Goo Dolls

* * *

><p>He told me to leave, so I will. I'll show him. I'll show him that he's not as emotionless as he tries to make himself become. He has a heart and a soul. It might be buried deep, but it's down in there somewhere.<p>

It's _got_ to be. He couldn't be a being without one.

I've got enough food to last for a while. I only took the food that wouldn't spoil. Maybe somebody else would come back for the valuables if his crew didn't strip everything.

I know he said go back to the ship, but I can't. I don't ever want to go back. There's a pain in my chest, but I can't decide if that's because I'm running, or because I'm disobeying by running. And it could very well be both.

But at this point, I don't care. I just need to get as far away from him as possible.

He calls himself Captain. He's no more qualified to be a captain than I am. In fact, I might be _more_ qualified. I have more heart.

The sack thrown over one shoulder, I glance behind me as I reach the outskirts of the woods. They're still sweeping the streets and the houses, so they're not paying any attention to me. I slip between the familiar trees and then begin to run, not worried about my sack making noise. Not bothered by the fact that I could have a whole crew of pirates down on my head if this goes wrong. Barely even considering where I'm supposed to go. Knowing that wherever I do go, it just needs to be _away_.

The wildlife scatters as it hears me coming, but I keep running. Those walking lessons with the Captain truly paid off. I'm fit as a fiddle. In fact, I think I'm doing even better somehow. My legs aren't nearly as tired as they would have been. Or, at least, my metal one.

I keep running. Dodging trees, roots, rocks, ponds, rivers, giant tortoises.

Then, I'm tired. And slowing down. I wonder how far I've carried myself. Hopefully at least a couple miles. Maybe more. The sun is lowering itself into the horizon, leaving the sky a tinged yellowish-orange and me wondering how long I'd been running.

My sides heaving with effort and my normal leg burning—my hip and rear on the other side are killing me instead of my leg muscles, probably from having to lift a heavier weight than usual- I take a seat on a rock and try to cool down.

I need to find some water. But, until I find some, I can make due with some of the things I've got in my sack. I put it down in front of me and begin rummaging through it. A couple sacks of rice—maybe for a pillow?—, two cans of beans in their own juices… that might just have to do. My lips naturally curl in disgust at the thought of drinking warm bean water. Yuck. Maybe I can go a bit longer without some.

I close the sack and bunch up the extra fabric around the top in my fist before hauling it over my shoulder to have it rest against my back. As I start walking again, it nudges my back like a draft horse would nudge for a sugar cube.

As I walk through the foliage and overarching trees that reach towards each other with eager branches, I can see only green and a healthy, fertile brown. I love that brown color. Rich. Beautiful. The color of soil that's ready for crops. The color of coffee in my father's ceramic cup, steaming and frothing as he pours it from our tin kettle and it sloshes against the creamy white mug insides.

I sigh. At peace. No stress. I'm sad. And weary. And burdened—physically and emotionally- but it's bearable out here. When I can just keep going and let what's behind me fade away like the light of the evening.

Twilight makes the forest smoky red and I'm looking at it through drooping eyelids. Each step feels heavier than the last, like I'm ripping up a tree by its roots and those roots keep getting deeper and deeper. I need to curl up around my legs and sleep until someone comes and gets me.

The Fiolene part of me hopes it'll be the Captain so that my chest will stop aching but my human side jolts a cry of "No!" and forces me to continue, stumbling slightly. My thighs and rear twitch with effort and sweat begins to bead on my forehead, slipping downwards until the droplets catch in my brows like fish caught in a net. My boot tromps against the grass, while my metal clinks when it hits the tiniest rock.

Flowing water greets my ears like the tinkling of a shop bell and I smile before stepping forward and pushing aside tall reeds between a ring of trees. Swirling complacently under the mouth of a small waterfall lies a pool, lit golden red in the dying sunlight. It flashes like gunfire and my smile grows wider. Can my leg stand water, though? I'd rather not risk it.

Taking the safest route to avoid mud and slick stone, I near the water's edge and sit on a rock, tucked amid cat tails and weeds peeking from the water. Beetles and skidders and shining flies hover over the surface, grabbing up mosquitoes and their larva that stray too close to the surface.

The water is chilled slightly as I plunge my hands in and cup them, bringing it back to my mouth. My lips feel rough on my hands at I drink before pulling my lower lip into my mouth and ripping off some of the death skin. I return to the water again and again until my belly sloshes whenever I move and then wipe my arm across my face before leaning back and looking up at the swiftly dimming sky. Day transitions to night as the keepers of the forest trade shifts.

My father had always said that the owl is the ruler of the night forest. He watches in silence, waiting for his prey. His talons are eight centimeters and his wing-span 1 meter. He picks up mice and rodents as a mother cat would pick up a mewling newborn. _To have an owl fly over one's head_, he'd told me, _shows that one will grow in wisdom and be blessed with knowledge. _

I don't bother to watch the trees for the owl. He is smart and would have heard me coming long before he began his hunt. He would steer clear of the much larger thing bumbling about in his woods. Instead, I turn my face towards the stars, watching the sky for the ones that shoot like bullets from the guns of the constellations.

They're at war, you know. The constellations? They-

Twigs snap and with a flurry of feathers, an owl shoots over my head to land in a tree 10 meters away. He puffs his feathers up and stares past me before making brief eye contact and then swooping away.

I crouch low to the ground and slip between the reeds and grasses by the river bed. I hadn't realized how dark it had gotten.

Lantern light, I assume by the way it sways back and forth along a straight line. And voices, too far away to register clearly. I take a few steps forward, feeling a few pebbles mixed in with the grass snag in the joints of my metal leg.

"Damn it all," one of the voices snaps like the branches they're passing. "It's too damn dark to do anything but wander these God-forsaken woods until daylight, so why don't we save ourselves the trouble and make camp here."

"But the commander said-"

"I don't give a rat's ass what the commander said. I'd rather get there first thing in the morning than fall prey to some native savages."

I shift slightly, and wince as a branch snaps beneath me.

"What the hell was that?" The lantern swings in my direction as the newest voice shouts, this one much younger than the first or the second.

The first voice laughs. "Probably just a giant tortoise trying to get in its burrow for the night, Tomlin."

"Don't be such a pussy-willow," the second voice says, followed by a hard thump of what I assume to be hand against back. The lantern swings even more violently.

I can make out their faces and forms perfectly as they near a stump and a clearing of grass. The first voice is a mustached man- human for certain. His shoulders are broad and his muscles ripple as he moves. The second is a blue-skinned man, tall and thin with a sheen across his body. Is he the same as Lockgrim? The third is a young, scruffy guy with brown hair that sticks out in all directions on the top of his head. He hasn't grown into his ears yet, and probably never will.

They begin to pull off uncomfortable articles of clothing. Capes. Holsters. Grieves. Bracers.

Bracers?

The battle attire. The same. The very same damn clothes as those murdering bastards. A sudden rage- undeniable in its level of fury and slightly confusing- fills me from the bottoms of my feet to the tips of my ears.

I breathe in quickly through my nose, trying to cool myself down. My skin has grown almost pitch-black with fury and I clench my fists until my palms ache from my finger nails digging in. And I wait, crouched like that. I wait until the moon is nearly directly overhead and they've rolled onto their backs, their heads to the flames.

My face is a solid mask of neutrality as I creep forward, channeling the spirit of the panther as my father had always taught me. My shoulders creak as I glide forward on my hands and knees towards the nearest gun. If I can get the gun, I can kill them before they even get the chance to try anything. Before they get the chance to do to me what they did to Tris. To my father. Probably to my mother and my school teachers and the kids I went to school with and their siblings and parents. What they did to my entire village. What they did to our way of life!

_Damn them all!_

The gun is in my quivering grip and I stand, raising its angle slightly to line up with the blue one's head. No sense in risking him having any special abilities.

A crack of bullet flying from the tip of the gun, then the dull thunk of it going through his skull and into the dirt almost immediately thereafter. The other two shoot up from their snoring, the younger one getting tangled in his blankets.

The older one reaches for his pistol but I'm faster. It goes through the base of his skull and he slumps over with a sharp intake of breath. His body lays over his legs, folded in half and still in bed. I laugh loudly, letting my voice ring out as loudly as that gunshot.

"Don't kill me, please!" cries the younger one, lacking the wits to have grabbed his pistol and shoot me as I stood over his comrade's dead body. A primal urge fills me from my very core, encouraging me to slay- to kill. But I pause. Should I spare his life? What would that benefit myself? Certainly he would either run off or kill me in my sleep.

And his death would bring me great joy.

"Who the hell are you?" I demand, aiming at his throat. "Why are you tromping through my woods?"

"These are your people's woods?" he asks.

Both he sure isn't bright! I laugh again, letting the booming and unnatural sound rack my chest.

"Are you an imbecile? Answer my questions!"

"My... my name is Tomlin," he says, slowly raising his hands above his head. "I am a footman in the Lorft Infantry. I was traveling with my superior officers and we decided to brave a shortcut."

"You picked the wrong shortcut," I growl, cocking the pistol. "You yellow-bellied mother f-"

"Wait, please!" he screamed, almost in tears and throwing out his hands as though he'd actually attempt to catch my bullet. "I have a girl I want to marry. I promised her!"

"I'm sure she'll understand when I hand her your head."

"Please! I'll do anything! I'm the son of an officer! I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Just let me see Maureene again!"

Leaving the pistol cocked, I relax my stance. "Fine. Why are you attacking our villages? Why would you seek to murder women and children?!"

"We're just following orders, I swear! I never intended to hurt anyone! We're just looking for the last few pieces and were told it would be on this planet!"

"Last few pieces of what? Your dignity and sense of honor? Because lemme tell you- you destroyed the last of it when you attacked the first village."

"The treasure! The trove! F- Uhhh... Flynn's... Flint's! Flint's trove!"

I readjust my aim and fire. He screams, clutching his wounded hand to his chest. I re-cock the pistol. "That was for lying to me."

"No, I swear! It's the truth! Please don't kill me!"

Tris didn't get to beg for his life. Tris didn't have the chance to have a life! Flashes of what little time we had together ran through my mind. Tromping through ponds and pools to find Jewel Toads and then running home screaming after we'd realized we were covered in leeches. Sitting at the dinner table together at twelve, holding hands under the table and passing small smiles while the rest of our families passed dinner rolls.

The jolt of my gut as his lips, years later, brushed mine so tenderly, so softly that I thought I might burst before he pulled my hips into his and kissed me deeper than a black hole.

Tears prick my eyes.

"_Dammit_!" I scream. "Damn you and your whole army. Damn you!"

"Please," he whimpers. "The pieces are in the leather satchel. You've got to believe me. Why would I lie to you?"

"My question," I say through gritted teeth, "is how you can live with yourself. How you can live the blood of innocents on your hands."

"I-"

"Go to hell, soldier."

I pull the trigger, my wrist aching from the rebound as the bullet shoots forward, imbedding itself in one of his eyes.

He falls backwards, writhing, and hits his head against a rock, screaming higher than I'd ever thought possible for a human. As his skull smacks against the hard edge, it breaks open and then he slowly falls silent, gurgling slightly before being still.

Panting, I shoot him again just to be sure. Then, just as the three men, the forest falls silent. No more ringing of gunfire. No bird song. Not even the gusting of the wind through the tree canopy as I stare at my handy work. Three murdering bastards down, the rest of the army to go.

My mind shuts off as I wander over to the bags they've brought with them. Provisions enough for three grown men for multiple days. I could last weeks on this as a supplement.

Dried fruit, dried meat, purified water, first aid supplies, sleeping gear, armor and ammunition and other weapons. They must've been traveling from a long distance to meet their unit.

I glance at the leather satchel out of the corner of my eye as I pop some dried purp into my mouth. The firelight flickers across its gleaming surface, daring me to pick it up. Daring me to see if what the man said was true. I'm no coward.

The leather is slick in my hands as I yank it from its resting place. Brass clasps unsnap easily, revealing a single book.

I tug it from its place and put it under one arm before heading to retrieve the blankets of the older man, not wanting to risk potential poisoning from blue-man's and young-man's blankets having too much blood for my taste. The bunched fabric is still warm as I grab it and lay it out by the fire.

Wrapping myself in them, I get comfortable and open the book. Word coat the pages, written in a sloppy hand, black ink smudged, smeared and speckled all over. I flip through the pages, ruffling them like the feathers of a goose before it's plucked. I'm ready to tear the pages from their bindings until a flat, heavy object slides from between the pages and into my lap.

A... disk? It's square like one, and silver. No labels. Just funny grooves on its sides.

I look at the disk until my eyes are blurry. Pulling the book closed, I tuck it into my trousers, and yawn widely. So... tired...The fire is warm. The night has been successful.

The owl flies past me once more, perching in a nearby tree to stand watch over three dead and one living. My mind disengages and drifts away at the moon begins to set towards the horizon.


End file.
